


Paradolia

by Kassykins



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dread, Frightening themes, Horror, Terror, Unnamed Reader, at least i hope so, gender neutral reader, gore isn't scary its gross, scares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kassykins/pseuds/Kassykins
Summary: You were on a team building weekend with your work colleagues to the infamous Mt Ebbott, when one wrong step ended with you falling into a deep, deep hole. Lucky to be alive, you set about searching for a source of fresh water to help you stay alive until rescuers could find you.What you actually found might make you wish you had died.And your terror is only just beginning.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	Paradolia

**Author's Note:**

> I've had an issue of late, dear reader - I've been seduced by quite a few fics that had extremely promising horror themes to start with, only for them to switch tracks into usual Undertale shenanigans after a few chapters, leaving me with some serious horror blue balls!
> 
> As usual, if you want a specific fic, you probably need to write it yourself. I've not written straight up horror before, so we'll see how scary it actually ends up being, but I'm going to do my best!
> 
> (Incidentally, if you have come across an actual horror fic, please link me to it in the comments!)

What little light you could see above you was different every time you opened your eyes. It was difficult to breathe, and you were surrounded by the overwhelming stench of rotting flowers. Your back hurt, sharp enough to wake you, but not enough to keep you awake. It was so cold. Were you going into shock? Full consciousness came to you slowly, your concussed mind struggling to remember what happened. The guys from work... bloody team building weekend... you didn't even want to go... hiking... you slipped... and now?

You focused on your breathing first, but the flowers were making you wheeze. That noise was all you could hear, echoing off the bare rock walls, high and rasping. You took stock of your body carefully, moving all ten fingers one by one, then your toes, wrists, ankles, elbows, knees. They all worked, but were sore and stiff, like you were coming down from a fever. You could just about see the hole you had fallen into, twinkling like a star in the rock far, far above.

Fuck, you were lucky to be alive.

If you wanted to stay that way, you'd need to be smart.

Your back hurt the worst – were a couple of your ribs broken? If that was the worst of your injuries, it would be a god damned miracle. With extreme care, you got to your feet, making sure you could hold your weight on your wrists and ankles. Wobbly, but you'd live. 

Just beside you, visible by it's unnatural orange colour and glow-in-the-dark strips, was the hiking pack that the organisers had insisted everyone have – it must have somehow come off your shoulders as you fell. You hadn't seen the point in them when they handed them out, since you were all staying in cabins and had no intention of camping out, but you were more than glad to have it now. Emergency rations, hydration salts, a first aid kit, a warm coat and socks, utility knife, headlamp, and stuff to make a fire. Attached to the sides were a canteen, sleeping bag, and compass. Everything you were going to need to stay alive until rescue came.

In a flash of inspiration, you pulled your phone from your pocket, hoping beyond hope you'd have at least one bar of signal. Alas, it seemed you had landed on it, as not only was the screen broken beyond any chance to fix it, but the body was bent to the point that the sides had split, and it refused to turn on. It was just an expensive brick now. Half out of habit alone, you shoved it back in your pocket. Who knows, maybe the GPS would still work. Somehow. It wasn't exactly your area of expertise. 

Below you was a large bed of flowers, half mulch from how badly rotted they were. Had this broken your fall? Stranger still, flowers in a cave? Sure, they might get light from the hole in the cave roof, but they needed more than that to grow.

Fresh water, for example. That was something you would need as well, if you wanted to stay alive long enough for a rescue team to get to you. Your workmates were decent enough people that they wouldn't leave you down here to rot, but it may take rescue services time to get to you. For flowers to grow here at all, there had to be fresh water close by – you hoped them all being dead didn't mean it was dried up, or poisoned in some way.

You were going to sue everyone when you got out of here. Everyone.

On one side of the cave was an exit – the half collapsed rocks would make it a tight squeeze, but with any luck it would widen out. You took a moment to fish the headlamp out of your pack – it seemed the company who ran the team building camp had the foresight to include extra batteries as well. Perhaps you would sue them a little less.  
Maybe. You'd see how you felt at the time.

Right now, however, you made sure all the straps on your headlamp and bag were tight and secure, tightened your laces, and prepared yourself to go spelunking. All you needed was fresh water, then you could go back to the place you had fallen, ration your food, and wait.

The first few feet were a tight squeeze, especially with the bag on your back, and any natural light quickly disappeared. You were right about the passage getting wider, and after a few minutes of clambouring and crawling, you were able to stand upright again.

You took a look back the way you had come, gauging how easy it would be to go back. The way the fallen rocks suddenly ended, the almost perfect arch in the stone... it almost looked like a door. But that was silly.

“Howdy!”

You spun around.

There was nothing there.

There was another hole in the mountain above you, letting more natural light filter down. A tiny patch of grass, and a single yellow flower sat in its middle, was all the greeted you. The voice had been echoey, almost distant. Scrambling forward, you took a look up at the hole above, but it was far too far away to see anyone looking down.

“Hello?” you called anyway, hoping one of your co-workers might be the source of the voice “Anyone there?”

No answer.

Great, you were losing it already.

You looked down at the flower – unlike the ones in the other room, this one wasn't rotten, but it wasn't any better off. Instead, it looked like it had been torn up, and deep gash carved right into its middle, its petals in tatters.

Truth be told, it was disturbing to look at, for several reasons. Firstly because that meant there had to be something in this cave to cause that damage. Best case scenario, it was already dead, and you'd find it's skeleton or rotting carcass in a corner somewhere. Worst case scenario, it was a hungry, pissed off, and very much alive bear, and you would have to make a mad dash back through the collapsed tunnel to stop yourself becoming its dinner.

You sincerely hoped it was the former.

Finding the next exit, you kept going, resolving to keep your ears peeled for any sign of animal life.

You stopped by the exit – geology really was amazing, the way the rocks had formed here looked almost exactly like pillars. You wished you knew more about the science to be able to know what they were. The same stuff that made up the Giants Causeway, maybe? Something similar? Regardless, you kept going.

Only to stop short.  
There was no cave before you. Even with only the light of your headlamp, what lay before you was clear – bricks, stairs, and openings that could only be windows and a door. What... what were these doing in a cave? Was it some kind of lost temple? An underground city? It seemed too fancy to be a military installation, but clearly no-one had been here in a very, very long time.

You looked back at the rocks you had just passed. They were pillars. And the stone on the other side of the room, had it truly been an archway? It was possible. It was possible!

You threw off your bag, digging through the top layers. Hopefully, the camera your boss had given you to take snaps of the weekend for the staff bulletin board wouldn't be broken, or nobody was going to believe this when you get back topside!

“Howdy!”

You spun around so fast it made your back hurt. You did not imagine that. And yet, everything was still, silent but for the sound of your breathing. An echo, your brain helpfully provided for you, bouncing around this place for god only knows how long. That made sense, right?

You pulled the camera out, and thank goodness it seemed to be working fine. You found a good angle, adjusted the settings, and pushed the button. As the flash of the camera lit up the room, you could have sworn you saw shadows stood all around you.

A trick of the light, of course. Nothing more. You took a look at the picture, making sure you got as much of the room as possible. If there was more later, you didn't want to take up all the memory with one room.

What was that in the doorway? You zoomed in, but the tiny screen didn't have enough pixels for you to get a good look at it. It looked like a massive shadow, but you could also make out splashes of colour – predominately purple and white. You looked back up at the doorway, but your headlamp illuminated nothing.

Stuck pixels, probably. There was nothing there.

You fastened your bag on your back and continued on. Above the high, high doorway was a stone plaque, inscribed in some long forgotten language. You took a picture of that too. Your bad luck could be the archaeological find of the century! 

If you ever got out of here, anyway.

You pushed that unhelpful thought down. It was far too early to be worried about that.

It was too early to be hearing voices too...

You continued on to the next room. The door beyond looked like it had been forced, lying diagonally in its frame. It too was enormous – what could even move a door that big? You took more pictures – was that a lever in the wall? Some kind of ancient mechanism? And more writing too... - before you climbed over the ruined door into the next room.

What could this place have been, back when it was in use? There were no pictures on the stone walls, as you often saw in pictures of ancient temples, and no furniture of any kind. Who had built this place? Why was it so big?

You yelped, letting out a healthy swear as rotten wood splintered under your feet. Shining your light down, you saw two deep trenches cutting through the room, simple wooden bridges crossing them. At their bottoms were smooth pebbles and water stains. Were these some kind of aqueducts? The plot thickens!

In the next room, you saw your first sign of habitation – a wooden frame, rotten fabric spooled around its base, it's innards lying in piles there and there, grey and sodden. Some kind of dummy? A training device for some long dead warrior? You took it's picture and moved on.

There was a clatter behind you, making you jump clear out of your skin as you spun around. The wooden frame was now on its side. There was no breeze, and it's four feet looked sturdy enough to keep it up.

Perhaps you had brushed it as you passed? But then surely it would have fallen towards you, not away...

A rat could have done that. Or some kind of insect living in the wood. That was logical.

You turned your back on it to proceed, only to hear the scrape of wood against the stone floor. You almost sprinted on, barely taking note of the overgrown and long dead ivy that covered the walls before you. The only thing that stopped you running on was the spikes.

Another aqueduct, this one far larger, but once again dried up. In the middle of it was an island, out of which were sticking long, rusted spikes, four per square tile. Some were at different levels to the others, having fallen or rusted stuck long ago. You were sure they must have been very, very sharp once, and without being able to say when your last tetanus shot was, you weren't about to test how well they had worn.

Crossing the rotting bridge carefully, you picked your way through the spikes, weaving a path through the ones closest to the ground. Some of the tiles gave way a little under your weight, but the spikes remained still. Was this some kind of Indiana Jones style trap? Would there be treasure at the end of the path?

You'd settle for finding a fresh water source. Or better yet, an exit.

Beyond lay another long room full of nothing. It was absurdly long – some kind of ceremonial chamber? At the end was a single pillar, but it didn't even reach the ceiling? It was Greco-Roman in design. In this part of the world?

Your heart sunk a little – maybe this was some kind of art installation, built cheap and left to rot after its purpose was served. You hoped not.

You kept going. More long dead ivy, more piles of mulch that might have once been leaves. You startled when you heard a clear 'ribbit ribbit' in the air, calming your pounding heart with rational thinking – if there was a source of fresh water, it was possible there would be frogs, right?

You side-stepped a large hole in the ground, sticking to the walls, and continued along the path. There wasn't much to see here, aside from another line of those spike tiles, the mechanism long since destroyed by a boulder fallen from the ceiling.

Turning a corner, your foot met thin air where the floor should have been. Had the bag on your back not been so heavy, you might have fallen forward, instead of twisting painfully backwards and collapsing down onto your own poor leg with nothing but enthusiastic swearing.

Maybe now was a good time for a break. You gave your heart a moment to calm down as you beheld the path before you – another trap, the path nothing more than thick wooden beams that wound around the room. Had there once been a false floor over the area, waiting to ensnare anyone foolish enough to cross over carelessly? You had very nearly been that fool...

When you were ready, you started across the beams. Luckily, they were wide and sturdy, not shifting once under your weight despite their age.

Half was across the room, a flash of yellow caught your eye.

Looking below, you saw more half-rotten vegetation at least ten feet underneath you. Standing out, right under you feet, was a fellow flower. You couldn't see it clearly from here, but it almost looked like the same one you had seen in that second room, right down to the deep tear in its middle...

But that was impossible. You put it to the side of your mind and finished crossing the beams.

“Howdy!”

You bolted, pure instinct kicking in as your heart leapt up painfully into your throat. Fuck whatever had made that noise! The next few rooms passed in a blur, and you didn't stop until you slipped on a patch of slime, face planting painfully in front of a haze of white. As you regained your senses, you realised what it was.

A spiders web. A massive, enormous, veritable cloud of spider web, stretching far back in front of you, blocking anything three feet from your face. Whether it had been made by one massive spider or hundreds of tiny ones, you didn't care, backing away from it carefully while still on your hands and knees. You really hoped that wasn't the way forward...

And now your knee hurt where you had hit the ground. Fuck.

Okay, you needed to calm down. There probably hadn't even been a voice, it was just your mind playing tricks on you. Without stimulus, the human mind made up all sorts of things. You sang a few notes, just to give your ears something to hear as you rubbed the pain from your knee. To your distress, the way your voice echoed off the bricks sounded exactly like the voice in your head had.

Only that voice had been high, almost like a child... Your mind came up with weird things.

You took stock again, making sure you had everything, only to find you had dropped the camera when you fell. Luckily it wasn't far, and you turned it back on to make sure it wasn't broken, looking through the screen at the dark hallway you had just traversed.

There, in the opening to the last room, was a wispy white form, hovering a foot or so off the ground.

The heck? You looked up, the light of your headlamp illuminating it further. Nothing. You looked back at the screen, only to find it was still there. It seemed to be slowly rotating, as two dark circles started to come into view. Dread gripped your heart as you looked back up, once again finding nothing.

Your whole body went rigid with terror. There was no such thing was ghosts. There was no such thing as ghosts. There was no such things as ghosts! Why were you so scared to look back at the screen? You were being silly, everything had a scientific explanation!

To prove it to yourself, you tore your eyes away from the hallway and looked back at the screen. Sure, enough, there was nothing there. You almost laughed – it was just this place playing tricks on you, nothing more! The stress of the day catching up with you: you just needed some rest, then you'd be fine. With a big sigh, you put the camera down.

Two big black eyes in a haze of white stared at you, inches from your face. The few notes you had sung before were hummed back at you, in a voice that was most definitely not your own. Your breath froze, you mind blanked. The eyes floated closer.

Without warning, a downpour began, shocking you into action. You were on your feet and sprinting away before your conscious mind would even question how it could be raining in a cave, hurtling through the rooms irresponsibly fast. You didn't even register the sound of frogs calling in deafening chorus under the rain, or the way they both suddenly stopped, leaving no sound but the slap of your feet on the ground and desperate wheeze of your breath.

It was the pain that forced you to stop, not able to get enough air into your lungs to feed your body. You grabbed the wall to keep yourself up, panting and gasping. Your mind desperately rejected what had just happened, but you were still fucking wet! What the fuck was that?! What the fuck was that?! 

You dared look back the way you had come, but whatever it was hadn't followed you. Nothing but stillness, and the dust you yourself had kicked up. No sound but the beating of your heart in your ears.

You were going nuts, you had to be. Had you hit your head when you fell? Was this all some kind of delusion? You were breathing so hard it hurt, hyper aware of any noise in this should-be dead place. Hands still shaking, you realised you somehow still had the camera in your grasp, gripping it so tightly it made your hand ache.

You didn't want to look at it. You were scared of what you would see.

A lifetime of science and rational thinking was telling you that what you had seen was impossible, that it was just the darkness playing with your mind, but you were still scared.

What if it wasn't?

What if it was?

Steeling your spine, you took the camera in both hands and held it up. You could barely steady the shaking, but against everything you could call better judgement, you looked at the screen.

Nothing. Just bare walls, dead vegetation, and dust. You scanned around, keeping your back to the wall, but just found more of the same.

No ghosts. No illusions.

You scrolled back through the photo's you had taken. There were shadows in all of them, stood in places they couldn't possibly be. Just stood there.

You let out a disbelieving breath, turning the camera off. If you could see them, they weren't there. And even if they weren't there, they couldn't hurt you.

(What was that rain, though? What the fuck was that rain, though?!).

You had to pull yourself together. If you were going to get out of here alive, you couldn't fall apart.

Okay, deep breath. You still needed to find water.

Ahead of you, the path split in two, one leading off into yet more darkness, while the other... Was that a tree? Your curiosity got the better of you, and you wandered over to take a look at it. The poor thing had been dead so long, it was almost fossilized, its bark black and rock solid.

As you looked around it, you saw more windows, and what was unmistakably a door, in the far wall. It almost looked like the front of a house, albeit a very simple one. Figuring the tree would make a good way marker should you need to double back, you proceeded cautiously towards it.

Even ignoring things that didn't exist, there was still a chance of finding a bear...

There was a door in the stone frame, but the wood was long-since broken in, left to rot where it was still attached to its hinges. You could barely believe your eyes at the very first thing you saw.

A wooden bannister. Almost exactly the same as the one in your mothers house. Floorboards. A small bookcase. There was even a fucking sconce on the wall! 

There went your dreams of an archaeological find. Someone had clearly been here in the last fifty years to have this kind of décor, but really that only raised further questions! What was this place? A cold war bunker that never got used? And if so, what the heck were all the spikes about?

The mundane surroundings helped settle your soul, made everything seem that much more normal, despite how odd it was to find something like this in a cave. Maybe you could find something to help you find a way out, a map of the facility or something.

Looking around for the way forward stopped that idea in its tracks.

To the left was a living room, and in that room was a chair. Sat in that chair was something entirely inhuman.

It was colossal, easily as tall as another one of you stood on your shoulders, with long arms that reached almost to the floor. It was covered in white hair, long and shaggy, and while its body was vaguely human in shape, its face was long, almost goat-like, its open mouth exposing rows of sharp teeth while it looked like it was almost gasping for air. 

Almost. It was very clearly dead, slumped back on the chair as if it had died where it sat. The thing was gaunt, almost skeletal thin, like it had starved to death. Why was it wearing clothes? Tattered purple rags that were threadbare, bearing some kind of insignia on the chest...

It took your brain a moment to kick back in, and you realised you had been holding your breath. This thing, whatever it was, was very dead. Had it ever been alive at all? Was it a costume, or some kind of prop? All a part of some movie you had never seen?

You approached the thing carefully, taking in it's cloven feet, the small horns at the top of its head, and the long claws on its hands as you kept a sensible distance from it. No seams in the fur to indicate a costume, no obvious electronic parts. It could still be a prop, though. You took a couple of pictures of it before going back the way you had come, looking through the rest of the house.

The first room you found seemed to belong to a child, which you found unnerving. Even for a bunker, the idea of there being children in a place like this... The next room was dull in a parental kind of way, the sole item of interest being a diary you couldn't read, its pages covered in the same incomprehensible language as the other things you had found. The last door you couldn't even get open.

The last place to check was down the stairs, and if there was nothing useful there, then you would go back and try that other path. As you trod back along the hallway, a sense of wrongness prickled at the back of your neck. You couldn't figure out why until reached the top of the stairs, eyes still fixed on the living room.

The chair was empty.

The chair was empty.

The chair was empty.

You pulled the camera from your pocket and scrolled back through the last few pictures. You hadn't imagined it, that thing had most definitely been there.

And now it wasn't.

Terror gripped your soul as the true weight of events sunk into your mind. That thing was around here somewhere, walking around, and you hadn't even heard it... Where had it gone? You were totally exposed.

A shuffle. A deep, breathy grunt, almost like a bull.

You looked towards the sound. It stood, even bigger than you thought, in front of the tree. It had its back to you, stretching out its stiff shoulders. Every breath and bellowing exhale let you know that this was, most definitely, not a prop, as it dug its long talons into the black tree. It let out a deep huff, almost like a goats bellow played through a tuba, and shook its head.

It knew you were in the house. There was no way it couldn't.

There was nowhere you could run.

Could you hide? Find a small place it couldn't reach? 

That was probably your only chance.

As silent as a teenager sneaking out after curfew, you crept down the stairs, keeping your eyes on the monster as far as you could. It almost pained you to stop looking, not knowing where it was or what it was doing. Your heart thumped right up into your throat every time a step squeaked, cold sweat covering you as your ears strained for any sound they could.

A thud, far too close to you, as the monster returned to the house, billowing foul air. You froze out of instinct alone, your muscles so stiff it hurt.

How long was it going to stand there? Did it know where you were? Could it smell you?

It took forever to move, lumbering off down the hallway you had just explored. When it found you weren't there, what would it do? You had never descended stairs as fast or as silently in your life, proceeding quickly along the hallway you found yourself in.

That's when you heard it. A loud, long bellow, enraged beyond words, rang out in the air, chilling you right to the bone. Above your head, thunderous footsteps rampaged back along the house.

You didn't wait. You ran, the sound of your footsteps drowned out by the anguished howl of the creature, the deafening crash of its rampage. All at once, it got magnitudes louder, and it was clear it was now in the hallway with you.

You ran as you had never run in your life, fuelled by terror unimaginable. It was getting closer, gaining fast, faster than should be possible!

You crashed to a halt when you were confronted by a door. It was enormous, covered in scratches all over, gouged right into the stone like the desperate slashes of a wild animal. You were that animal now, frantically throwing yourself against it, begging for any kind of give as the monster closed in.

In one last frenzied attempt, you took a running leap and threw your full weight against the door. It shuddered open, frozen air exploding in, only just enough for you to squeeze through. You didn't even think about it, diving through to the snow beyond, only to be yanked back by your foot.

The monster bellowed at you, too big to squeeze more than its top half through the open gap, as it held your boot in an iron grip. You screamed, thrashing like an animal caught in a snare, scrambling for any purchase you could find to pull yourself away from it.

A moments slip was all it took, and your foot slid free of the monsters grip, letting you back away until your back hit something solid.

The monster roared at you again, reaching out as if it could grab you, but did nothing to try and push the door open further. It sounded almost sorrowful, it's goat-like eyes locked on yours, as it lowered its outstretched hand to the snow.

You couldn't move. Even if it came for you, you wouldn't be able to run. Your whole body had gone numb, shock turning your veins to stone, your head light as air.

With one last, mournful bellow, the creature grabbed the edges of the door, pulling it closed as it disappeared back the way it had come.

Unable to take any more, you passed out.


End file.
